Friday, 24 April 2015

Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM) at University College
London

Immigration clearly ranks as one
of the most important issues for voters in the lead up to the UK’s
election. But public opinion doesn't always match up with the evidence, and
political parties can be led in different directions by both. With this in
mind, the following takes stock of the different policies about immigration, as
outlined in the parties' manifestos.

Where do they stand?

UKIP makes
the strongest claims about immigration causing harm. The Conservative and Labour manifestos
also tend to emphasise the negatives of immigration, real or perceived.

Labour
says the number of low-skilled immigrants is too high and points to no
high-skilled categories where they’d welcome increase. Both the Conservatives and UKIP want
migration to be lower overall. In their 2010
manifesto, the Conservatives proposed to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands –
a “goal” which the coalition government dramatically missed.
This time around, the party refers only to an “ambition”.

In contrast, the Liberal
Democrats and the Green
Party stress the benefits of immigration. Both parties propose more
open policies, such as the restoration of post-study work visas for students
and – in the case of the Greens – the abolition of minimum income requirements
for the entry of spouses. The Greens are the most thoughtful on the global
context, but their openness toward immigration is tempered by some scepticism
toward immigration for business reasons or by the more affluent, citing worries
about impacts on small businesses and house prices.

UKIP’s approach is the most innovative and the most
restrictive. The party wants to make sharp cuts to levels of immigration; an
approach which is tied to their core proposal of withdrawing from the EU.
Instead, the party wants to establish a points-based system which
treats Commonwealth migrants comparably to European ones.

The Conservatives tie the issue of migration to a
renegotiation of the terms of EU membership, as do the UUP. These parties
question whether free movement meets the needs of established EU members. On
the other hand, the SDLP’s positive comments on “free
flow of people” within the EU is as close as the party comes to discussing
immigration.

EU withdrawal is advocated also by several parties outside
the mainstream whose manifestos talk at length about immigration. The Communist Party and Socialist
Labour Party on the left, for example, regard the EU as an
organisation promoting capitalist interests at workers' expense. Both propose
immigration policies outside the EU with humanitarian emphasis. The Socialist
Labour Party propose a policy of zero net migration with priority for
Commonwealth immigrants. For the English
Democrats on the right, withdrawal not only from the EU but from a
wide range of international agreements is regarded as essential to regaining
full border control.

Boon, or burden on benefits?

For several parties, concerns about immigration from the EU
focus on migrant
benefit claims. Yet evidence suggests there is little
reason to consider this a serious problem, and that restricting
entitlements is unlikely therefore to discourage immigration.

The Conservatives, Labour, UKIP and DUP all want to delay
receipt of benefits by migrants in various ways. The Conservative and Labour
manifestos propose to rule out payment of child
benefit for children abroad. This will raise issues with EU
law, whether renegotiating terms of the UK’s EU membership or not.

Stresses on public services are a prominent theme in the
Conservative, Labour and UKIP manifestos alike. The Conservatives propose a
fund to alleviate such pressures, which bears similarities to a fund
scrapped early in the last parliament.

The best evidence suggests that migrants pay taxes which
more than cover the cost of benefits received, in
cash or in kind.
The net contribution of migrants should alleviate the cost of providing public
services.

Where’s the evidence?

Costs imposed by migrants on the NHS are
mentioned by the Conservatives, and are repeatedly emphasised in UKIP’s
discussion of immigration. In fact, immigrants are typically
healthier than natives on arrival, becoming more like them the longer
they stay, and make similar
use of health services.

Crime is another issue raised by Conservatives, Labour and
UKIP in relation to immigration. In fact, evidence suggests migration is unassociated with changes
in crime rates.

Housing also figures in some manifestos. The Conservative
party worry about use of social housing, and UKIP about housing shortages.
The Greens,
on the other hand, worry about richer migrants pushing up house prices.
Research on migration
and housing is still developing, but evidence does not point to strong
upward pressure on house
prices.

Revival of student opportunity

UKIP alone discusses the burden which immigration imposes on
schools. Such a burden might simply arise from growing numbers, or it might
follow from the difficulty of educating children of mixed backgrounds together.
The international
evidence on the
latter is ambiguous,
but negative effects of high proportions of non-native speakers in the
classroom on the performance of British-born children seems
to be ruled out.

Instead, the treatment of foreign university students is the
biggest issue linking education and migration. Liberal Democrats, Conservatives
and Labour promise crackdowns on bogus
institutions.

UKIP and the Lib
Dems pledge to separate students in
official statistics. Since the Lib Dems are not proposing to base targets on
such statistics, the point of this is unclear. For UKIP, who do want to keep
immigration down, but are not so averse to students, it makes more sense to
exclude students from the count.

The most significant proposal here is reintroduction of
the post-study
work route, abolished under the current government, whereby students are
permitted to work for two years after completing study. The Greens promise
unconditional restoration, Plaid and the SNP propose restoration for students
in Wales or Scotland, and the Lib Dems propose a reintroduction specifically
for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) graduates.

A cap
on skilled immigration would be retained by Conservative, Labour and
UKIP. Indeed, UKIP would put a five-year moratorium on any unskilled
immigration whatsoever, and restrict skilled immigration to 50,000 visas per
year. By way of comparison, about 221,000
highly skilled non-student migrants are estimated to have entered the
UK for work in the three years prior to 2013.

Evidence on how immigration affects average wages and employment finds
no significant adverse effects. If there are labour market effects, then they
hit workers
on the lowest wages. The Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens
all propose crackdowns on exploitation,
through new legislation or greater monitoring.

Questions of language
proficiency appear in the manifestos of Conservatives, Labour, Lib
Dems and Greens. The emphasis shifts from testing
migrants' English to offering English lessons, as the tone of the
manifesto becomes more liberal.

Regional differences

To the extent that labour market restrictions are set
nationally, they may be inappropriate for the demands of particular
regions. Plaid,
the SNP and
the Alliance Party (in Northern Ireland) all call for greater regional
sensitivity of policy in various respects, and complain about policies set to
suit the south of England. But the unionist parties of Northern Ireland make no
similar calls, and the nationalist parties of Northern Ireland say nothing on
the issue.

One respect in which policy may be regionally discriminatory
is nationally set income
thresholds for family
union, which may hurt families more in lower income regions. Some suggest
such policies are intrinsically
unjust. Plaid proposes a review; the Greens would drop the policy
altogether. The Conservatives alone propose a toughening, while UKIP worries
about sham
marriages.

For those whose asylum claims fail, the Greens suggest a
review of legal status, while the Lib Dems would abolish the Azure
card system. The Greens want applicability of legal aid to immigration
and asylum work extended.